In the mid-90s, Bonnie and Terry Turner created a TV sitcom about a group of aliens (led by John Lithgow as their self-regarding High Commander) on a research mission to Earth. As they attempted to integrate into human life by posing as an ordinary family, gentle, charming hilarity ensued for six seasons – an unexpectedly long time, and 3rd Rock from the Sun became known as “the show they couldn’t cancel”. The fondness everyone felt for it endured past the show’s technical peak and kept it on our screens until the commercial inviability became too stark and/or the actors’ interest in participating waned. It was a rare pocket of sentimentality in the otherwise ruthless world of television programming.
Only Murders in the Building is in all respects a much better show than 3rd Rock. It manages to fold in a cosy whodunnit, social media satire, zippy one-liners, sight gags, physical comedy and intergenerational friendships and commentary. An undertow of melancholy is ameliorated by optimism as its trio of main characters bond over their love of true-crime podcasts, then start their own, forging connections with the assorted misfits in the apartment building they live in, and the wider world. But as the fifth season begins, the memory of 3rd Rock begins to come back to me more strongly.
